Thick as Thieves
by beisel76
Summary: Methos and Joe have a plan to save Alexa, and it incorporates all of your favorite immortal thieves! No pairings, some OCs. Some supernatural stuff at the end, but this fandom leans a little towards that pole anyway.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note:

All characters from Highlander belong to their respective owners, and not to me. Kleo, Shane, Flynn, and Neil however, do belong to me. This is really the sequel to A Bad Joke, but you can read it stand-alone if you want. Slash mentioned of you squint, but there's, like, no slash in the fic; I know, it's a Christmas Miracle!

Next will come the crossover fic!

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Thick as Thieves

It was two o'clock in the morning when Joe's phone rang at his bedside. He was practically shaking with excitement; he wasn't upset or even a little annoyed at receiving a phone call at such an early hour. He'd been waiting, praying, _begging_ for this call to come. He was a little surprised though, he admitted freely. He knew Kleo was a brilliant researcher – he'd seen her Watchers resume and had worked with her on several occasions – but it had been less than three days since he had put in the call to her.

"It's Joe Dawson. Kleo, tell me that's you?" he said through the phone.

"Were you expecting someone else?" a young, energetic, female voice asked him in reply. Joe let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding in at the sound of her voice.

"What do you have for me?" he asked her, anxious for the information she had called to give him.

"What we need is a Thokcha, specifically one of the ones at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. I'll mail you the blue prints for the museum and some photos of the target and the security on my way into work today."

"Alright, and you're sure it will work?"

"Joe, have I ever _once_ provided you with false information?" Kleo asked him.

"Point taken." Joe answered after giving the question some very serious thought. "We'll meet you there in two days." He told her.

"Okay, I'll be waiting for you there. Where do you want to link up?" she asked him.

"C'mon Kleo!" Joe said, letting himself laugh at the question. "We both know you've scouted out a place." Kleo laughed with him.

"Yeah, you're right. I've got a reservation at the Hilton on Sansom Street, and there's a cute little café on Spruce Street. It's right next to Irvine Auditorium and across from the university hospital."

"See you there at 11 o'clock sharp in two days Kleo. Drive safe." Joe said as he readied himself to go back to bed.

"You too Joe. Tell your friend everything will be okay. We'll handle this." Kleo said as she struggled to stifle a yawn. Joe laughed.

"Go to sleep kid; don't you have school tomorrow?" he joked.

"Haha, very funny." And for a moment, Joe found it believable that she was related to one of his friends. "Good night boss." She said, and hung up.

Joe nestled into his bed once more, and for the first time since Methos had told him about Alexa's relapse, he felt like everything was alright with the world. Except for the fact that he was lying to his friends, and he was enlisting the help of an underage girl in something very, _very_ illegal. He decided to ignore that, and eventually, he drifted off into peaceful slumber.

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Amanda stepped off the train and onto the solid and unmoving concrete platform of 30th Street Station with ease and grace. She had just put on a fresh face of makeup, and she had dressed to accommodate the early summer weather. He heels clicked against the pavement in a brisk and fierce rhythm as she entered the large main area of the station.

She scanned the crowd of new arrivals rejoicing with their family and friends, and the soon to be departures bidding tearful goodbyes. After a moment, she spotted the full head of white hair charmingly peppered, and made for the elderly man standing near the post card kiosk, propped up on his cane.

"We ready to go and make off with the merchandise o what?" she asked him after they shared a brief hug.

"Methos is getting Cory from the airport in about thirty minutes. We'll give him some time to drop his bags off at the hotel, and then we'll meet up with Brenda and head for the café." Joe explained.

Amanda nodded, and followed him out of the large station to the inconspicuous car he had rented for the occasion. He checked his mirrors, not bothering to ask if the immortal woman was buckled, and took off east-bound from 30th Street Station.

"We'll have to time to meeting just right though." He said as he drove.

"What's the margin of error?" Amanda asked, leaning forward a little in her seat and turning her head to face Joe.

"Absolute zero – none." He replied.

Amanda's eyebrows flew up, surprised by the urgency and sincerity in the Watchers voice. She hadn't been aware that the job would be so intense even before it started. She wondered just who the second half of the group was, if they couldn't be left together for even a moment or two. Her interest piqued, she settled back into her seat as her curiosity raged.

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Richie checked his watch for what must have been the hundredth time in the last thirty minutes. He knew he was making himself a target for the local punks, having personal experience from the other side of the situation, but he was horribly nervous. It wasn't like he would have taken up thieving again for anyone in the first place, but there was so much pressure if this job didn't go down the right way. Methos was his friend, not an extremely close one, but a friend nonetheless and then there was Alexa. How could he let those big doe-brown eyes fade out? Let that smile slacken? He couldn't let them down.

Finally, it was close enough to the meeting time that he could leave the hotel room and go down to the café. There were roughly twenty paved blocks between the hotel and the café Joe had told him to be at, but he walked the distance at a steady and purposeful pace. He scanned the sea of faces all around him, picking out ones here and there; the exec with a fake rolex talking on his phone and the Hispanic punk behind him who obviously thought it was real, the woman pushing her baby in a stroller too busy talking to her friend to realize that her baby had managed to wriggle his left arm out of the harness, and the shopkeeper who was probably just too exhausted to see the gang preppy fratboys sneaking apples under their jackets.

But then Richie saw the flash of a familiar face walking on the other side of the street, and he felt the buzz. The man was tall, had broad shoulders, blue eyes, and blonde hair tied into a short ponytail at the back of his head. Richie did a double take, and then, still not sure, tried to take a third glance at the young man. But he couldn't locate the head of sleek, tied-back, blonde hair in the crowd on the opposite side of the street.

He shook his head, dismissing the thoughts running rampant through his head. It couldn't be who he thought it was. There was no way Shane was in Philadelphia, and even less of a chance that the man he had just seen was Shane. After all, Richie told himself as he turned onto the crosswalk accompanied by roughly a dozen other people, Shane was eight years older than him, and that kid looked twenty-two, tops.

Richie kept going down the street; he had only covered three blocks so far. As he rounded the corner of South 36th street from Sansom Street, he caught sight of another flash of blonde hair, but this crop of golden locks was curly and cut to chin length on all sides. Richie sped up, his heart pounding. The way the young man walked – it was just like Flynn's gait – moving from the hip and not bending the right leg half so much as the left one. Then he felt the buzz again.

He averted his gaze to a glass-front store, and caught the reflection of blue eyes, so much like his own and Shane's. Richie tore his eyes form the glass and the reflection it bore, but he had lost the man.

"_This is silly!"_ he thought to himself. _"Flynn is almost thirty years old and that kid could barely pass for twenty!"_

The freak encounters had done enough to agitate his nerves though. His patience was wearing wafer thin, and his pace quickened threefold before he realized it. He was locked in recollection of his childhood. He made it ten whole blocks before he was knocked out of his reverie by a head full of hair the exact same color as his own, and the same color eyes too. And this time, he was noticed too. The buzz filled his brain, but not so much that he couldn't focus on the person in front of him; he could never ignore that face.

"Richie?" the man asked. His hair was straight and it barely managed to brush his shoulders.

"Neil?" Richie asked. "Is that you?" he asked.

"Yeah," the other man replied, somewhat dumbfounded. "How can you look like so young?" he asked. Richie made a rude noise.

"I'm only twenty two." He answered. "And look who's talking! You're supposed to be three years older than me, but if anything you look the same age as me." Neil nodded.

"I was heading to a café across from the University Hospital; do you want to grab something to eat with me? We've got a lot of catching up to do."

They had always the closest with each other, closer than either Flynn or Shane had ever been to any of the four of them. Remembering all the fun they'd had as children, growing up together, Richie smiled.

"I was just heading there myself, to meet up with some friends." Neil didn't let his curiosity show, but he did answer with at least a half-truth.

"So am I. Her name is Brenda Wyatt." He said as they walked together.

"I'm meeting up with Amanda and Methos." Richie told him. He didn't see a need to fill his long-lost brother in on all the details of his visit to the city of brotherly love. However, he was beginning to wonder if the glimpses of Shane and Flynn were genuine, if Neil was here.

Richie hoped desperately that it was coincidence he and his obviously immortal brother were in the same city, heading for the same café. Though he was overjoyed to see Neil again, and a large part of him hoped that the same force that had brought them together would also attract Shane and Flynn. There was nothing all four Ryan brothers couldn't steal.


	2. Chapter 2

Methos, Brenda, Cory, Amanda, and Joe waited at one of the outdoor tables of the café. Joe had to admit, Kleo's reconnaissance had been pristine; the café was small, but crowded enough that they didn't stick out, and the outdoor seats were behind the café. What was even more impressive was that Kleo had paid the manager not to let anyone else back there.

"So, how many people are we waiting on Joe?" Brenda asked after taking a sip of her coffee.

"Five more, Kleo, Richie, Shane, Flynn, and Neil." He said, and he checked his watch. They had five minutes.

When the back door of the restaurant opened a few seconds later, a young girl stepped through. She looked to be about eighteen, but Methos and Joe knew she was a few years younger. Her five feet and ten inches of height contributed to her appearance of being older than she really was, as did the trace amounts of makeup around selective parts of her face. Her skin was clear and well tanned. Her nails were long and simply painted black, to match the long locks tied back into a tail shaped by curls, with the exception of the three blonde sections at the front of her main, and the sections of red towards the back. The two on either side were impossible to miss, even in the tail, but not quite as obvious as the middle section of her bangs. Her eyes were blue, bright and vivid blue. She wore a colorfully printed crop tank top over a white camisole, jean shorts, and black combat boots.

"Kleo!" Methos said in warm greeting. He stood up, along with Joe, to give her a casual hug. When they pulled back, Kleo's eyes found Methos', and she put a hand hand on his arm.

"How are you holding up?" she asked him softly. Methos shrugged.

"I've been better, but I've been a lot worse too." He answered, masking the anxiety in his voice.

"Glad you could make it." Joe said. "And you're barely on time, as usual."

"Hey!" Kleo responded with feigned indignity. "I'm a teenager – five minutes is the best you're going to get out of me!"

They made their way to the table to sit down and make introductions. They all stopped in their tracks when Methos, Cory, Amanda, and Brenda turned their heads toward the door. The buzz was strong, noting the presence of a very capable immortal, who stepped through the door a few seconds after they felt the buzz.

He was handsome, with his silky blonde hair tied back into a ponytail at the back of his head. His eyes were blue, the same color and shade as Kleo's in fact, and his facial features weren't dissimilar to Richie's. He swept the table with his gaze, noting and processing every person either sitting at it or standing near it. His gaze faltered over Kleo.

"Shane?" she asked. The lack of uncertainty in her voice surprised Shane. He himself had barely recognized her.

"Kleo, what are you doing here?" he asked her, launching in with a demanding tone. Kleo inwardly rolled her eyes; some people never change.

"Same as you, I imagine." She answered, with a meaningful slide of her gaze to Joe.

They were interrupted by another buzz and another immortal coming through the door. This one was blonde as well, but his hair was a few inches shorter than Shane's and curly. Their eyes were the same color though, the same piercing crystalline blue.

"Flynn!" Kleo said, and this time she looked at Joe full-on. "What the hell is this Joe? I think you left a few things out when we talked over the phone!"

Joe put his arms up. He knew this would happen, and he was mentally kicking himself for not being honest. Then again, he also knew that neither of them would have shown up if they knew their siblings would be there. But the worst was yet to come, he knew, because they still had two more Ryans yet to join them.

As if on cue, Richie and Neil stepped through the door, and immediately stopped dead in their tracks upon seeing the other three new arrivals to the café. They let their confusion show, unlike Shane and Kleo. Flynn looked a little nervous, and cautiously stepped out of the middle of the four. Methos couldn't say he blamed him.

"Joe," Richie said slowly, "Start explaining. Now."

"Alright, why doesn't everyone just sit down, and we'll talk all this out?" Brenda tried to mediate.

"You can start with why there's a cop here." Kleo said, with a significant glance at Brenda.

Shane, Richie, Neil, Flynn, Amanda, and Cory all whirled around to stare at Joe, and then to Brenda, and back to Joe. The Watcher however, simply raised his hands and sat up straighter in his chair.

"Look, if you all just sit down, I'll explain."

While the five newcomers cautiously took their seats at the table, Brenda locked her gaze onto Kleo.

"How did you know I was a cop?" she asked.

"I'm very observant." Kleo didn't elaborate further, leaving Brenda to wonder what she was doing wrong.

"First of all, Brenda is not a cop; she hasn't been in law enforcement since 1995." Joe said, trying to defuse the situation.

That did nothing to assuage the anxiety of the seven people sitting at the table who had once been involved in criminal activity. The phrase _'Once a cop, always a cop'_ rang through their heads like a haunting mantra.

"Now, let's get introductions rolling here. This is Kleo Grace; she's the researcher behind this whole thing. This is Methos, the other researcher. Here's Amanda, one of the retrievers, and Cory, another retriever. Finally, this is Brenda Macleod, a metallurgical expert."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Flynn Ryan." Flynn said, and offered his hand to each of them to shake.

"Shane Ryan, pleasure to meet you." Shane said, and followed his younger brother's lead.

"Neil." The next in birth order said, and then Richie, who only had to be introduced to Brenda.

Richie glared at Cory, who he hadn't managed to forgive completely for the car incident a few months ago. He was interrupted by Amanda's query in her lilting voice, cutting through the tension like a knife through butter.

"So, are you four young men related?" she asked charmingly.

"Yes." Shane answered, speaking before any of his brothers could. "We're brothers, and Kleo's our sister."

"Oh no!" Kleo said with a laugh in her voice. "I'm your cousin."

"Well, we were raised by the same woman." Shane argued. He sharpened his eyes and turned them on her, trying to glare her into submission.

"That doesn't make you my brother." Kleo said with ice in her voice as she stared Shane down. She had grown up too much to let that look stop her. "None of you are my brothers."

All four of them felt a stab of pain in their hearts at her words, and Kleo supposed she felt a bit guilty for that. Then again, Shane, Flynn, Neil, and Richie supposed that they should feel guilty too. Meanwhile, Amanda, Cory, Methos, Brenda, and Joe watched the exchange in confusion.

"If you all are ready to start, I have early Christmas." Kleo said as she dug several manila folders out of her purse.

Amanda's eyebrows rose in admiration as she watched the young girl extract perfectly assembled packets of information and hand them out to each of them one by one. Once everyone had their folders, she turned to Joe.

"Do you want to brief them?" she asked. Joe shook his head.

"You start, after all, you know more than I do." He said with a joke carried in his voice.

"I doubt that." She answered with a smile, but flipped her own folder open to the first page.

"The target is the Tibetan Thokcha currently on display at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. It's over three thousand years old, and it's rumored to have mystical properties."

"Rumored?" Cory asked. "We're going after a rumor?" Richie kicked him under the table.

"Do you want to tell them the story Methos?" Kleo asked. Methos laughed.

"Oh, I'd love to." He answered. "In 1904 a British Brigadier General by the name of James R L MacDonald led British Indian forces and few white troops into Tibet. The ensuing war resulted in over 200 dead British soldiers and thousands of dead Tibetan peasants. There was no official reason given for the war, but the resounding theory is that the British government got wind that China was going to give Tibet to Russia. The real reason, which was so cleverly covered up by the British upon their victory, was that MacDonald was dying of Consumption. "

"So after his forces trampled over a couple of villages, he went up to a Buddhist monastery and stole the Thokcha. It healed him and kept him in magnificent health until it was stolen from him sometime in 1924. He lived for three more years, in which time, the thief smuggled the Thokcha into India. It was found roughly three decades later in an excavation in Pakistan roughly twenty miles east from both the Afghanistan and Iran borders. Then it was shipped across the pacific to Philadelphia, where it still resides in the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology." Methos finished cheerily.

"So, we've got the target, and the history, but where's the door?" Amanda asked.

"There's a museum tour guide convention this weekend, conveniently hosted by the University of Pennsylvania." Joe said.

"Which one of us is pretending to be a tour guide?" Flynn asked.

"No one. Kleo happens to work at the Museum of Natural History, and she received an invitation." Joe said.

"My boss thinks I'm here spying on the other museums. What he doesn't know won't hurt him." she explained.

"So, what exactly is the plan?" Brenda asked.

"I performed reconnaissance yesterday and the day before that during the tours. Flip a few more pages and you'll find the blueprints I included." Kleo waited for everyone to find them and then continued. "The Thokcha is in an ordinary display case – your typical glass box that bolts down and lifts up. That's not what we need to be worried about though; there aren't any night guards, but curator locks the place up at six. As soon as she swipes that key card, the electronic security system is triggered."

"Can we shut down the power, or fry it?" Shane asked.

"No. The backup generator will kick in if it's shut down, and if either of those things happens an alarm sounds and the boys in blue show up. We'll need to hack into their security cameras and loop the footage over." She looked at Flynn as she said this, who nodded in understanding.

"Once we're in we need to snatch the Thokcha without triggering the motion sensors, pressure points, or the laser sensors." Methos said.

"Just how the hell will we do that?"Cory demanded, skeptical.

"Kleo is going to go in and get the thokcha, after you and Amanda detach the glass case. She'll vault on top of one of the other cases, you'll throw it to her and replace it with a fake, and then Shane will pull you three up to the roof access. Then you'll drop down to the back of the museum, and Where Brenda and I will be waiting in a van to get you guys out. Richie, Neil, and Flynn will be keeping watch." Joe explained.

"Once we get to the van, I'll check the Thokcha to see if it's real."

Everyone nodded, understanding their roll in the plan. Richie wasn't particularly sure if he liked his sister being involved in the crime, but he supposed no one would care for his opinion, _especially_ not Kleo. Shane supposed he should give Steven a call. Neil tried to ignore the churning feeling in his stomach; he was happy that his role in the crime would be relatively minor – it had been so long since he'd pulled something like this off. Flynn was itching to move, but he forced himself to sit still until Joe dismissed them.

They were supposed to meet up in the alley outside the museum at midnight. Joe had told them to relax, but then he turned to Kleo and the Ryan brothers, who seemed very anxious to escape each other.

"You kids should spend some time together; you've got a lot of catching up to do." He blazed a trail out the door and down the street after saying that, leaving the five blue-eyed young people staring at each other.

"We'll, you heard him." Neil said brightly. "What do you guys want to go do?" he had always been the bold one, the one to initiate contact.

"I'm free after I make a call to my boyfriend." Flynn said. He didn't want to enlarge the rift between them by deposing Neil's suggestion. After all, he'd missed all of them so much.

"Me too." Shane said. He figured that the less he said, the less the others would have to use against him when he eventually did screw up.

"I'm in." Richie said, and then turned to Kleo.

She was gone. All four of them looked around, trying to spot her, but to no avail. She must have slipped past them into a throng of tourists when they had been talking.

"Well," Richie said laughingly, "You can't deny she's related to us."

And then the tension broke. Even Shane laughed at the joke, and he let his anxiety subside for a little while. Assuming it best not to worry about their sister, the four young immortals began to walk back to the hotel, and made plans to see a movie, like they would have done when they were younger.

Meanwhile, from down the street, Joe watched them walk away together. He smiled to himself very slightly, admiring his handiwork. Now he just had to get Kleo in on it. Methos had chided him earlier, asked him if he knew what he was doing, if he was sure he wanted to meddle in this complicated family. Yes, he was beyond sure now. He had less than twenty four hours to get the Ryan and Grace Family back together.

"Honestly Joe," Methos asked him after they resumed their leisurely pace with Brenda, Cory, and Amanda alongside them. "What's with you and fixing that family?"

"I told you, Kleo's my friend and so is Richie. Those kids have had hard lives, and they might get easier if they had their family back."

"Kleo's my friend too, but I'm not trying to make her get along with her cousins-turned-brothers."

"Well, that's your problem." Joe dodged the implication in Methos' words.

"Did you ever think that maybe she had a legitimate reason for not liking them? Come on Joe, you've seen her file!" The world's oldest immortal argued.

"Hey!" Amanda piped up. "Would one of you explain what it is you're going on about?"

Methos and Joe both sighed wearily, and shared glances. Which one of them wanted to pull the grenade pin? Finally, Methos spoke.

"Alright, listen carefully because I'm not going over it again. Shane, Flynn, Neil, and Richie, in that order, were born to Emily Ryan and a… unknown father. Thalia, Kleopatra, and Jason Grace were born to her sister Anna Grace and another… unknown father. When Richie was two, making Shane about ten or eleven, their mother died. Anna, Kleo's mother, took them in. A year later, Anna had her first child, Thalia."

"So Kleo grew up with four older brothers, not knowing they weren't really siblings?" Amanda asked, just to clarify.

"Yes. Now, when Jason was two, making Kleo five and Thalia nine, their mother filed for divorce from Santo Sanchez, then the mayor of Los Angeles. Anna left Jason in the care of his…stepmother, for his own protection. Thalia was upset, and decided to go after him. That left Kleo, Richie, Neil, Flynn, and Shane in the care of their stepfather, who was an abusive prick. So they ran away, but Santo hired some PIs who eventually caught up to them in St. Louis. They only managed to snatch Kleo, but the boys argued about what to do next; Richie and Neil went back to LA to get Kleo, and Shane and Flynn kept on drifting across the country separately. Kleo had already ran away when Richie and Neil got back to LA though, and then they got separated after Neil was arrested for a break in and Richie was found and shoved into Foster-care."

"Oh my god! That's terrible!" Brenda exclaimed as they kept on walking. She looked back over her shoulder, as if to find the subjects of their conversation.

"No kidding." Cory said. "So what happened next?"

"Neil made it to Dublin, since he had grown up speaking a tiny bit of Gaelic with his mother and aunt; they all speak it and can stumble through it. He got a job as a courier, and was stabbed to death over a package in 2003. Sean burns found him and became his teacher and, rumor has it, lover. Shane was murdered by Maust in 2000, and Steven Keane found him in 2005. Flynn was killed by Walter Graham, who then became his teacher until Flynn ran away from him a few years ago. Now he's shacked up with Gregory Powers." Joe explained.

"Richie headed north to Washington State and eventually broke into the wrong antique store, which is where he met his teacher, Duncan Macleod. He was shot a few years ago by a petty thief, along with Macleod's fiancé Tessa Noel. Kleo ran away from home six times in less than ten years. Then, in January of 2007…Santo got drunk and fell down the stairs. Kleo ran for her life and ended up in New York City, where she immediately made a name for herself as a researcher for the Watchers. That's when I met her." Methos finished the story.

"So, let me get this straight, on top of pulling off a job to save his woman, " Cory indicated Methos, "we're hosting a screwed-up family reunion for the traumatized?"

Amanda smacked him repeatedly, and Brenda simply watched. Connor certainly did seem to have some very _interesting_ friends.


	3. Chapter 3

The clock struck midnight silently. No bell tolled, no train whistle blew, and no alarms went off. The University was practically deserted. There weren't any dorms in the area, nor were there houses or apartments. This section of the campus was all auditoriums, eateries, museums, the football field, and laboratories.

So no one saw the young woman, elderly man, and teenage blonde in a black van parked beside the museum. They were well hidden in the alley between the museum parking garage and the museum's academic wing.

The two young people lowering themselves from the museum skylight, coincidently located right above the Thokcha display, were even more impossible to see. The two redheaded teens standing outside the museum's side door to the alley were masked in the shadows of both the museum and the parking garage, but they were very careful not to look at the van, so as not to solidify any possible connection made by an onlooker. Then again, as everyone realized with relief, there were no onlookers.

Kleo ran her hands down her legs one more time, rubbing them to prepare for the warm up. She stretched thoroughly before checking her uniform again. Her black leotard was a little too shiny to be inconspicuous, but she had been pressed for time, and it was her only black leotard. She shivered, because as her luck would have it, she was stuck in an over air conditioned museum in a _sleeveless_ leotard and black ballet shoes.

"Ready?" Joe asked through his radio.

"And set." Kleo answered.

"You are now the invisible woman Sis." Flynn said, and in the background everyone could hear computer keys clacking swiftly and in a smooth rhythm.

"Don't call me Sis." She said flatly as she took one last opportunity to stretch.

"You're clear on the outside." Richie said over the radio.

"We've got the glass case up." Amanda said. They could hear Cory grunt as she handed the heavy glass frame to him. The man muttered a few curses under his breath, and promptly shut his mouth with a sharp _snap_ when Amanda glared at him disapprovingly.

"Alright. 5,4,3,2,1, GO!" Joe gave the command.

Kleo launched into a continuous hand spring. She struggled to keep her eyes open; with every turn over she became dizzier and dizzier, until the entire room was spinning. But she forced herself to count – she had guessed during the tour that it would take her twenty handsprings to reach the large sarcophagus just a few feet away from the Thokcha display.

16

17

18

19

20

She tucked her arms in as she finished the last hand spring; not what she would usually do. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at a dark wall.

"Alright!" Amanda said admiringly from her spot aloft, being held up by wires hung from the skylight. "Now just turn around nice and slow. You don't have a lot of room."

Kleo moved her feet minimally, so as not to miscalculate her distance from the edge of the chest, and eventually faced Amanda and Cory head on.

Carefully, Amanda tossed the Thokcha to Kleo. The teenage girl tucked the prized item under her arm, and reached up to the upper story ledge just above her. She leapt across the floor to the ropes holding Cory and Amanda up, and began to climb them.

As she did that, Amanda placed the fake Thokcha in the case, exactly as she had found the original, and began the process of refitting the glass display case onto the stand. Once she and Cory were done with their task, Shane hoisted them up to the skylight slowly and steadily. Kleo pulled Amanda up, and then Cory, while Shane took care of closing the skylight and gathering the cables.

"Thanks honey." Amanda said sweetly, giving Kleo a pat on the back. She was starting to like this girl. "Looking good in that leotard by the way. How often do you work out to have legs like that?" she was only half joking; Kleo had an almost impossibly lean body.

"Between gymnastics, ballet, archery, fencing, and martial arts all year round, and then cheerleading, volleyball, and softball during the seasons, you burn about 2000 calories a day. Then run three miles on the weekends, drink about five liters of water as a daily minimum, and eat twice your recommended daily serving of fruit." She wasn't joking, not one bit.

"Still following Mom's old routine huh?" Richie asked, letting his laugh show through a little.

"How do you find time to work at a museum half-pint?" Cory asked her, a little grudgingly, as they walked towards the edge of the roof.

Shane gestured to Kleo, indicating that she should be the first to rappel down the line. She clipped herself to the cable and got ready to push off.

"You're just jealous because I caught you trying to break into my place of work. You were very sloppy to leave all those footprints on the window."

She retreated quickly, and handed the Thokcha to Brenda as soon as she reached the van. Methos handed her his jacket, knowing very well how cold she had to be in so little clothing. She accepted it gratefully, and relaxed into her seat as they all waited for everyone to get back to the van.

"I hate to tell you this," Brenda said after Joe had engaged the ignition and took off down the alley and onto 34th Street. "But this can't be the real Thokcha."

Joe stomped on the brakes, and the ensuing cursing and yelling almost masked the terror issuing from Methos. Everyone in the van turned to look at Brenda for an explanation, except for Joe, who had returned to driving down the street. No doubt there were solid black tire tracks across the roadbehind them from his hazardous stop.

"Thokcha means '_thunder iron'_ right?" Brenda began. Kleo nodded. "And they're most often made from meteoric iron right? This can't be a Thokcha, or at least, not the one we're looking for – it's made of compressed steel. It's no more than four of five decades old."

Everyone let out a collective groan. Kleo tried desperately to recall all of the research she had done in the last few days. She failed to find a glimmer of hope, but there was one other place she could think of that the item might be.

"Methos, what are the chances that we can all get to Pakistan by tomorrow?" she asked.

"We can make it happen. You think it's still in the cave?" he asked her.

"You disagree?" she asked him in reply, hoping against hope that he had another theory, _any_ other theory.

"Unfortunately no." he answered.

"Wait a second, hang on! Why don't you two want it to be in the cave in Pakistan?" Shane asked.

"Apart from the fact that it's a _cave_ in _Pakistan_," Kleo answered in a deadpan, "of the fifty people that started the expedition from Karachi, only three returned."

"And how many of them made it to the cave?" Richie asked, hoping for some reassuring news. After all, there were a lot of things that could kill you in the desert.

"Fifty." Methos and Kleo answered simultaneously.

"Call your significant others boys and girls, because you sure as hell won't get any cellphone reception where we're going." Joe said as he gunned the engine to get back to the hotel.

So much for simple weekend trip to Philadelphia.


	4. Chapter 4

Thick as thieves 4

The sun scorched every inch of skin it could find as two Jeeps crossed the sparsely vegetated desert terrain. Methos drove vehicle while Shane drove the other. Kleo, Amanda, Cory, and Brenda had elected to ride with Methos, while Shane and his three brothers rode in the other Jeep. Brenda cradled a GPS monitor in her hands. Her heart ticked nervously as the machine beeped louder and faster, until the noise that issued from it was almost continuous.

"STOP!" she yelled, and both Methos and Shane obeyed her command.

Everyone's conversations ceased as they unloaded themselves from the vehicles and proceeded to take their gear out with them. They hadn't even begun the job, and they were already sweaty. Amanda found the feeling unpleasant, and patted herself on the back for her clothing choice.

All of the men had elected to wear shorts except for Methos, who had opted for loose-fitting cotton pants, citing that he knew exactly what kinds of things could be in that cave as his reason for wearing pants. Even he was baking though. The only people who had found a way to stay cool were the girls. All three of them had revealed that morning over breakfast that they were in fact wearing swimsuits under their shorts and T-shirts.

"Alright guys, listen up." Kleo said before turning the floor over to Methos.

"The topography of the cave is pretty straight forward – there's a two mile tunnel, then a thirty foot drop, all but seven feet of which is filled with water. From there we'll find a vertical rise of about fifty feet, from which we will find a very large, _dry_ chamber."

"And that's where the Thokcha will be?" Flynn asked. "The real one this time?" Kleo nodded.

"We don't know what killed all of those men in the first expedition and we _do not_ want to find out. Let's proceed quietly and cautiously. Keep your eyes open and be ready for anything." She said.

Everyone nodded in agreement, and followed Methos into the cave. It was dark, dank, and stuffy. They all had flashlights gripped firmly in their hands, and all of the immortals had their hands on the hilts of their swords. It failed to comfort them as they proceeded further into the cave.

Every fifteen seconds Shane would let his eyes slide to each of his siblings in turn. Flynn was on his left about two feet in front of him. Neil was immediately to his right. Richie was walking alongside him, matching his pace step for step, which he found a little annoying. Kleo was directly in front of him and in the center of all four of them.

Kleo tried to suppress the fear welling within her as they trekked further into the tunnel. She felt as if the walls were closing in around her, and battled with herself. Part of her hoped that someone would remember that she was indeed very claustrophobic, while the other prayed to any God who would listen that no one realized how frightened she was. Then, she realized, there would be the water. She hated being surrounded by water. She hadn't been able to venture into deep water since she was six years old.

Not even half a mile down the tunnel, Richie could have sworn he heard someone breathing behind him. When he turned around there wasn't anyone there. He was bringing up the rear of the party.

Then, about ten minutes after that incident, Methos saw a shadow flit across their path. It was very brief, less than a second even, but he saw it. He stopped and looked around, trying to catch sight of whatever had caused such a large shadow. He told himself firmly that it was bird of prey, but in his mind he knew that the shadow had been undoubtedly human-shaped.

Everyone was on edge when, roughly five minutes after that incident, they heard rocks and dirt falling in a stream somewhere off to their right. Then the same noise came from a spot out of their line of sight to their left, and then again from the right. Everyone I the group unconsciously moved closer together, and kept on going down the tunnel.

They kept their pace brisk after that, and sure enough, they reached the sudden drop roughly thirty minutes later. But there was no water, just a thirty foot drop indicated by the very faint glow of the glow stick Brenda had cast down into the tunnel shaft.

"Kleo, you're the lightest. If anything goes wrong, you tell us and we'll pull you up straight away." Amanda said as she hooked the harness and cables to the young girl.

Shane felt a very strong need to protest, but he knew it was futile. Kleo was, in fact, the lightest out of all of them, and therefore would be the best one to test out the rope. As she clambered down the tunnel however, he felt his heart begin to beat an un-maintainable rhythm. He looked to his brothers, and instantly knew that whatever ominous feeling she harbored, they shared with him.

The quiet of the cave was shattered by a loud snap, and then Kleo's high-pitched yell. She hadn't screamed as she fell to the ground still twenty feet below her, but she had cried out. Her exclamation was drowned out by the frantic yelling of her brothers however, who were screaming.

Kleo reached her hands to her sides and pulled out two eloquently shaped weapons from her belt. No one could see them as they looked down into the dark tunnel, but Methos and Joe they were sais. She drove them into the _hard _wall of the tunnel, and used them as leverage to stop her fall. She looked back behind her to the ground below, and saw that she had only been five feet short of a very painful impact.

"Kleo, you okay?" Neil demanded as Richie threw himself into the pit.

He landed on his feet, and he felt the familiar pain of broken bones impeding his steps as he moved to lower his sister to the ground in his arms. She pulled her sais out of the clay wall and jumped down herself before he could get a hand on her, however.

"Fine!" she answered. "Cut the rope and drop it down here so that we can look at it!"

Cory obeyed her, and one by one the immortals dropped down without the aid of the rope, preferring not to go through the trouble of rigging another one if they could survive the fall. Once everyone in the party had landed safely, feeling the smarting pain of broken toes, Kleo held up the end of the rope under the light of her torch.

"You can trust the cables and rope – they're just fine." She said. "This was cut. Look at the fraying on the end; it's perfectly clean."

"Guess we know we're not alone now." Brenda said, trying very hard to put a bright spin on things.

"Guess we know what killed those explorers." Flynn corrected, and indicated a pile of rotted corpses in the far corner of the tunnel.

Shane immediately moved to shield Kleo from being able to see the corpse, and turned to look at Methos.

"We need to keep moving." He said in a tone that brokered no refusal.

"He's right – the sooner we get that damn Thokcha, the sooner we can get out of here." Amanda added.

The party continued on, and so did the freakish incidents. Shadows here, footstep there, and whispers everywhere tormented them. Richie wondered if whoever was following them was just mocking them after a while; he was sure the sight of them all twitching with anxiety and leaping into the air was very amusing from an outside perspective. Needless to say, he found it about as amusing as one of Duncan's camping trips.

The flooded shaft they had anticipated came up a few moments later. To Kleo's relief, it proved to be a simple pit. There were plants floating in it, and even Methos had never seen them before. The water appeared to be tinged scarlet, but none of them could be sure in the abysmal dark that seemed likely to swallow them. Their hopes climbed through the roof. No one had really liked the idea of going into a dark cave in rural Pakistan, and none of them had even wanted to consider _swimming_ in a dark cave in rural Pakistan.

Methos was the first in, and he made it safely across. Brenda followed, and then Amanda, Cory, Neil, and Flynn. Richie and Shane reluctantly left Kleo standing alone on the other side of the pit, after she rolled her eyes at them and assured them that she would be just a few feet behind them. She followed them into the waist-deep water once they were half-way across, convinced that there wasn't anything to be afraid of after more than half a dozen people had waded through the pit without incident.

As soon as she stepped in, she knew she had been wrong. Every patch of uncovered skin burned like a white-hot flame. Kleo forced herself to take three more steps, but with each movement she felt her head get lighter and her limbs heavier. In the oppressive dark, she didn't realize that the world around her was spinning.

"Kleo, is something wrong?" Amanda asked.

Then she saw Kleo's arms after she raised them from the scorching embrace of the water. They were a vivid and angry color somewhere between red and purple. She supposed that the shade might be very pretty on a dress or used as a color swatch in a luxury sitting room, but it looked positively horrendous on the young girl's skin.

Methos and Richie each grabbed one of her arms and hauled her across the pit and onto the dry ledge. Kleo kept her mouth shut tight as everyone else in the group fluttered in worry over her besieged limbs. Brenda practically ripped her shirt off, revealing that the scorching rash had reached her abdomen and upper arms.

She walked side by side with Richie and Amanda hovering over her as they proceeded further into the very large chamber. It had taken ten minutes to convince them all that she was fine, and even then she had relied on the need to escape the fate of the expedition to get them to let her stand up. The pain was fading, and the rash looked much less vivid than it had minutes before. Amanda kept a very close eye on her anyway. Kleo put it down to their own invulnerability making them super-sensitive to the ailments of humans. She hated it nonetheless.

They stepped into the chamber, and saw the Thokcha lying on an elegantly carved stone podium in the middle of it. Methos crossed the room in a flash and snatched the object from its resting place. He had just enough time to hand it to Brenda for examination, before the walls and floor began to shake violently.

"What the hell is this?" Cory asked, grabbing Amanda and pulling her close to him. She rolled her eyes in annoyance, but if Cory saw, he didn't let on.

"A weight-triggered trap?" Flynn guessed.

"Who cares?" Shane yelled over the roar of the cave's devastating motion, "Just Run!"

They sprinted through a carved archway just before it collapsed into a heap on the cave floor, and continued on through the narrow passage it had led to. They seemed just barely able to beat the rate of destruction of the cave. As soon as the Richie, who brought up the rear, passed through one section of the tunnel, it collapsed behind him. Dust and debris flooded the air every time the walls caved in behind them, which made it impossible to breathe and see where they were going. Before long however, the only thing anyone could see was a steadily growing ball of light, which turned out to be the exit to the cave.

The light proved impossible to deal with until roughly twenty minutes later, when Amanda decided it was time to go, regardless of everyone's near blindness from the scorching sunshine and the debris from the cave. She drove one Jeep, and Methos drove the other one.

No one asked how Methos had managed to get a hold of a private cargo plane, and none of them were sure they cared. The flight home was long and ultimately very quiet, as most of them spent the time nearly passed out in their seats.

Joe smiled from his place behind the control panel of the aircraft. He felt like a babysitter swamped with sugar-high crashed toddlers. Cory's snoring got very annoying after a while. No, scratch that, Cory's snoring became unbearable about three hours into the flight. He had never been so happy to kick someone in the head to wake them up.

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While everyone else was sleeping that night, Kleo slipped out of the hotel. She bid Philadelphia farewell before taking off on her motorcycle. She wasn't sure if she had been happy or sad to see her brothers again, and she wearily admitted to herself that they were indeed her brothers, despite what she had said two days ago. She had forgiven Joe for lying to her, but she hadn't managed to forgive herself for leaving without saying good bye.

_It's better this way_, she thought. _They won't try to follow me if I make it difficult. They won't get involved in my crazy life. They won't find out. _

She knew better of course, but the lie made her feel better; more secure. If she told it to herself often enough, she hoped that she would eventually come to believe it.

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The next morning, Richie, Neil, Flynn, and Shane ventured across the hall and up three flights of stairs to the room Methos had said Kleo was staying in. Shane led the pack, as he had always done when they were younger. He had been prepared to rap on the door smartly, but seeing it wide open threw him off guard completely. All four brothers sprinted the rest of the way down the hall to the open door, and peered inside. Richie felt a tiny light inside of his chest flicker and go out when he saw the middle-aged maid bustling about, and not his sister.

"She gave us the slip." Flynn said, and it was obvious from the shaking in his voice that he was sad too.

"If she can sneak out without any of us knowing," Shane began, "then the four of us can track her down."

"Might be fun." Neil added.

Methos glared vehemently at Joe, who was sporting a very wide grin as the two watched the immortal siblings walk towards the elevator to go down for breakfast.

"_Aww_, it's so sweet!" Amanda crooned from behind the two of them, Cory in tow.

"Oh, how wonderful, a family reunited! Never mind what's going to happen when they find out about Sanchez!" Methos seethed.

"Hey! One problem at a time here!" Joe said. "And besides, they're her brothers. It's not like anyone's mourning the SOB."

"You and I both know that Duncan Macleod will not approve, and then there's the question of Steven Keane, and Michael McCormick. Oh yes, this is a _dandy mess_ you've gotten that family into!" Methos said.

"Well, at least they _are_ a family now." Brenda interrupted. "I'll see you guys around." She said, and retreated to the elevator, rolling her suitcase behind her.

Though, Joe couldn't argue with Methos' words. It was indeed a dandy mess.


	5. Notice

Katya here with a notice!

First off, I would like to say that I am very sorry for the delay. I offer the usual excuses; school, college selection, trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, all that fun stuff. Seriously, I don't think I've touched my X-box in over two months; I miss Mortal Kombat…

Moving on!

Secondly, I am writing a sequel to Thick as Thieves that elaborates more on the relationships of Shane, Neil, Flynn, and Richie. It carries on with their struggle to reconnect with Kleo, and ties in with the events towards the end of season four.

So keep an eye out for that, those few of you who are actually reading my Highlander fics!

For readers of What a Few Seconds Can Do, I swear I have not abandoned the cause!

And to all of you who read any of my fics, I have just one thing to say. I LOVE YOU GUYS!


	6. Sequel

Hello there! I just wanted to let you guys know that I have posted the sequel to my stories A Bad Joke and Thick as Thieves! It's called Gathered, and I hope you enjoy it. By the way, it is not the final installment. I will write more. Actually, now that I look at what I have planned out, this is a long way from over, so stay tuned!


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